Budget Paint for Jenny's '70 Sedan

[madworks]

So I purchased this nice sedan for my wife because it is in pretty good shape. Work to be done for sure, but overall I thought it was a good buy. Only thing was that she didn’t like the colors of the car. I thought it looked cool, but it’s her car and I want her to enjoy it.

This is how it looked when we got it home:

When I convinced her to buy it I thought “How hard can it be to get it painted?”, turns out I didn’t know much.

Since we were looking for a complete change of color I sought out some references from my friends. Two friends suggested the same shop here in Greenville so I drove over to chat with the guy.

I learned very quickly that the bread and butter of these Body Shops (Collision Repair Centers) is insurance work / collision repair. The first guy I spoke to, even though he himself had a ’67 Beetle, didn’t even walk out to look at the car. He suggested that I’d be spending in the neighborhood of $5000 and it could take 6-9 months. WOW! What an education I just got. I got essentially the same story from 2 other shops. The final ‘Collision Repair Center’ I went to simply shook his head and told me straight out that he has plenty of work with collision repair and is not interested in a project.

One thing I will say, all of these shops were insistent that if I was to have a color change, it would require a complete teardown of the vehicle. I do understand this - I know I’ll get the best results by doing that, and it will show very nicely. However, the goal for this car at this point is to get my wife driving her little bug. I needed the outside to match her vision of what ‘her little bug’ should look like. I’ll deal with the details (read this as under the bonnets and other minor color details) on my own.

Since the car is in good to excellent condition (it’s all relative), I thought I could get away with a true budget paint job so I set an appointment to get an estimate from my local MAACO in Greer, SC. To my dismay, the owner has established a limit on the age of cars they will take in. Forty-six years old was well beyond that shop’s limit. The manager was very polite about it and truly felt bad for turning me away. She gave me recommendations for several other ‘collision repair’ shops and also suggested I contact the Spartanburg MAACO location. That shop has a different owner and does not have vehicle age restrictions.

I went in on Friday to talk to Patrick and he was excited about painting my car. They had a half off special for one of their better paint services, so I jumped on that right away. We talked about what I was interested in and he wrote up an estimate. “When can I bring it in?” I asked. “I’ve already got you on the schedule for Monday” he replied.

That gave me two and a half days to get the car prepped. I had already asked the forum for some recommendations on painting with the car assembled and got some good replies - thanks for that!

The first thing I knew I needed to do was to remove any trim piece that did not need to be there. VW emblems came off. Next was the bumpers. No need for them to be in the way. I also decided that I’d remove the trunk and deck seals to allow for whatever paint may get in there to cover as much as possible (this of course being a risk I’m taking with this budget paint job). I’d replace with new seals after painting (along with tidying up the inner trunk, deck lid and doors).

The advice I got on the fenders was to remove the beading, have the car painted, then install new beading. I took a slightly different approach (details later), but even when I drove the car to the shop I was thinking I should have listened and just completely removed the beading.

For the turn signals and the license plate light / cover I would take a similar approach. For these items, I have removed the old rubber and chrome (as applicable) pieces, cut out just a small section of the gasket where the bolts are, and bolted them back in place. This leaves a bit of a gap between the pieces to allow for paint penetration and (hopefully) full coverage of the pieces.

As I began to look at the fenders I realized I’d have to pull at least a couple of bolts from the running boards (where they connected to the fenders). Of course, that made me look closer and realize there is painted surface behind the running board / below the door. I decided the running boards had to come off.

This was no easy task as the most forward bolt (body side) was frozen on both running boards. On the passenger side, the rear running board to fender bolt was also frozen. I kept turning until the bolt snapped! At least the bolt came out! I was thankful that the running board body side mounts were slots and not holes as it allowed me to pull the running board without removing that forward body mount bolt. A generous amount of penetrating oil and the bolt did come out. Here’s how the body and fenders looked after pulling the driver side running board. The passenger side looked about the same.

Funny how you never seem to take as many photos as you really want. I suppose I was just trying to get the work done. Not sure if it is visible in the photos but at the front of the body / rear of the fender well there was some body filler. It was not a large area and it seemed to go along the running board mount more then up onto the wheel well - although it did extend up on the inner wheel well. I will probably regret it one day, but I didn’t remove the body filler completely. I dug around it a bit with a dental pick - flaking off that which had rust underneath. Then I attacked it with my wire brush to beat back the small amounts of rust I found. I did hit the body filler with the wire brush as well and it seemed to be mostly sound (except for the dental pick work). I made the choice, right or wrong, to leave it be. It will be painted over, then covered with the running boards / fenders.

I did see a lot of the original green paint underneath other layers of paint. The wheel wells had been painted black over the green during one of the previous paint jobs (I found at least white and blue, although it may have been from the same paint job).

With the running board out of the way I could now get to the fenders. I decided since I was going to loosen the bolts, I should take them all the way out so I can clean up / prep the fender and body as best as possible. For me, prep was removing the dirt and flaked paint and giving the area a good sanding. This is about what I had to work with once the bolts and the beading were removed. With the fender resting on the tire I was able to access the contact area between the pieces and get it cleaned up pretty well.

As I had done with the turn signals and license plate cover and light, I decided to do a similar thing with the fenders. Because I wanted as much gap as possible between the fender and body, I decided to cut the bead away from the beading and replace what remained between the fenders, like so:

I’m not 100% sure it’s really doing anything for me, but I can certainly see deeper into the body / fender joint which means I’ll get paint as deep into the crevasse as possible. Here’s what the fender looks like after I reassembled:

Of course when I reassembled the fender, I cleaned up the bolts and applied a dose of anti-seize. Amazing how easily the bolts went back in.

When I removed the rear fenders I pulled the taillights completely apart and was able to feed the wires through. This allowed for completely removing the fender and full access to the wheel well. Photos of the driver side wheel well - passenger side was similar:

Again, there is a lot of the original green paint visible in there. There is a lot of dirt on the wheel well, that is not rust.

I was very pleased with the way the body looked overall. especially after seeing some of the tear-downs on this site.

I cleaned up the fenders and the wheel well before putting the fender back in place.

That’s all the photos I took before it got dropped off for paint. I dropped it off on monday morning, they called me around 1pm on Wednesday to let me know it is ready to be picked up. What a turn-around! Let’s hope the paint turns out ok....
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madwork's 1970 Baja http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=668092&highlight=
Madworks 1970 Classic Sedan http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=668073&highlight=
Madworks 1980 Vanagon Westy
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=672496&highlight=

[57BLITZ]

[Mos6502]

Are they or you going to be sanding down some of that paint before painting?

I'm asking because I have a car that got a couple of cheap resprays, and when the paint gets too thick it can start to crack around stress points (like door handles). That of course will depend on how thick the layers are, mine was was resprayed way too thick the last time it was painted, probably by some amateur in their garage.

[madworks]

[andk5591]

You missed a couple huge things. What are you doing around the windows? Unless the seals are reasonably fresh, you wont be able to mask them well. And even if you do and you later replace a seal, wont it suck to have a line of old paint around the window if the new seal is a little smaller? Glass should be removed.

Headliner removed? Masking that well is a pain in the ass. They painting the door jambs and all that? Under the dash? Underside of hood and decklid?

So - now you are seeing why you are seeing $5K and up. I am hoping all turns out well.
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D-Dubya Manx clone 1914. Ex wifes car.
Rosie 65 bug - My mostly stock daily driver.
Woodie 69 VW woodie (Hot VWs 7/12).
"John's car" 64 VW woodie - The first ever
Maxine 61 Cal-look bug - Ex-wifes car.
66 bug project - Real patina & Suby conversion
There's more, but not keeping them...

[Zundfolge1432]

Don't you like surprises? What kind of paint are they using? Single stage or base clear? It will look better thats for sure. I got an education too when I did all the prep and body work then primed, blocked sanded and layed down a few coats of ruby red single stage Omni paint. I learned that I hate body work. The difference between that 5,000 dollar paint job and macco is the prep and the quality of materials used and of course the labor. They'll probably just rough yours up with scotch brite and shoot it. A really good paint job will last years the bargain jobs not so much. Park it inside when you can and don't hit it with hi pressure water hose. I bet she will love the new car. Good luck.

[Cusser]

Maaco painted my '71 Convertible. In February 1978, painted the outside white, had been Clementine Orange. Cost me $139. Top was done in mid-1980. Sept. 2016 photo below; yes, I know the engine lid is 1970 sedan, and the rear reflectors are also 1970 ! I built the 1835cc engine in 1986, but remember that "1835cc engines don't last" !!!

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1970 VW (owned since 1972) and 1971 VW Convertible (owned since 1976), second owner of each. The '71 now has the 1835 engine, swapped from the '70. Second owner of each. 1988 Mazda B2200 truck, 1998 Frontier, 2014 Yukon, 2004 Frontier King Cab. All manual transmission except for the Yukon. http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_page.php?pic_id=335294 http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_page.php?pic_id=335297

[madworks]

[madworks]

[Zundfolge1432]

Here's what I ended up with and it took me over two years doing myself.

[madworks]

[Hatracks]

[Tim Donahoe]

Yeah, it won't be show quality, but it'll probably look fine. If you sanded it all over, at least the paint will stick.

By the way, how much are they charging you?

Tim
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Let's do the Time Warp again!

Richard O'Brien

[madworks]

[Hatracks]

[andk5591]

[Cusser]

Of course, with any body shop/paint shop, check out some of the just-painted vehicles !!!
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1970 VW (owned since 1972) and 1971 VW Convertible (owned since 1976), second owner of each. The '71 now has the 1835 engine, swapped from the '70. Second owner of each. 1988 Mazda B2200 truck, 1998 Frontier, 2014 Yukon, 2004 Frontier King Cab. All manual transmission except for the Yukon. http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_page.php?pic_id=335294 http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_page.php?pic_id=335297

[unclewede]

IF/when you want to do it "right" you need to sneak into the back of those collision repair places and find the pair of guys who are moonlighting.

Fenders off, no interior, they did all the body work and it took a few weekends while the engine was out anyways, with a single-stage, for $2k here locally. The sprayed the dash and doors, anywhere they could tell wouldn't be covered by headliner. I spent an extra $200 to have all the glass removed before they started. I just wished I knew then that eh headliner can't go in with glass in place

[madworks]

[pistolpetecowboy]

I'm also doing a 70 bug and it's been a little over 2 years so far.
I ran into the same thing around here when it came time to paint.
Apparently the money is in insurance repairs.
I did find a place that would do full paint but I couldn't justify the $2-3k.

I built a wood framed, plastic covered "booth" off the front of my 3rd garage and shot it myself with Dupli-Color Paint Shop - Base Coat/Clear Coat.
Not too bad for my first ever paint job, what I call a ten-footer.
I wouldn't use that paint again as it's too soft and I'm going to have to touch up where my 3M spray glue overspray got on it when doing the headliner and dissolved it. At least there's no re-coat window.

Here's a shot (dusty) of the result as i was putting the interior in.
'70 but went with metal dash.

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2X70 Beetle, 69 Baja Beetle, 71 Super, 73 Super, 74 Beetle, 2000 Vintage Speedster, 71 Squareback, 68 Bus,71 Ghia, 73 Thing, 2020 Jeep Renegade